Question for eBay Vets

[Ksyrup]

I've bought exactly one thing on eBay in my life, but I've begun dabbling a bit in softball bats, trying to find a couple cheap but good bats in different sizes/weights for my girls to try during the off-season. Anyway, last night I was in on a bat and had something strange happen, so I'm wondering if you guys can shed some light on why it happened and what I can do to not have it happen again.

I put in a max bid of $15 on a bat when the bat was around $5.

Within the last 3-4 minutes of bidding, a couple of people bid and it's now at $14 with about 90 seconds left, I'm still in the lead.

With about 75 seconds left, I decide to up my max bix to $17.50.

With about 35 seconds left, I get a bit nervous and decide to up my max bid to $20. I confirm the bid, the page reloads, and it shows a bid of $14 with my max bid of $20 underneath with about 20-25 seconds left.

Under 10 seconds left, the highest bid moves to $18. I think it's mine because my max is $20. I'm wrong - as I realize 11 seconds later. I've lost the bid. Afterward, of course, the email trail shows only my $17.50 bid was confirmed, and nothing about the $20 bid. I'm pissed.

So... is this common? I suppose the obvious thing to do here is just decide on my highest max bid sooner so I'm not having to do things at the last second, but it wasn't like I did this with 5 seconds left. I confirmed the bid and the page reloaded, so I had to rely on what the page showed me.

Any other general tips for not getting screwed at the last second? Or is it just a crapshoot like trying to get concert tickets when the floodgates open?

[sterlingice]

The short answer is that it's a crapshoot. I would say almost everything doubles (or much more) in price within the last minute unless it's an item that ends with only one bidder.

That said, I haven't seen something like that where your max bid didn't register

SI

[Apathetic Lurker]

Some people use sniping tools to automatically up the bid in the last seconds. Lost 100's of bids that way....

[molson]

And the winning amount was $18? I definitely though max bid meant the system would bid up for you to your max bid amount, and I've ebayed hundreds of things (though I've only rarely used the max bid feature). I'm stumped.

[B & B]

ive used the maxbid feature many times, just sounds like your updated one didnt go thru.

then again, ive found many better 'deals' on auctions that are not primetime where all the 9-5ers are home before bedtime.

[Ksyrup]

Yeah, it didn't. I got emails when all of my bids went through and never got one for the $20, despite it showing it was confirmed and accepted on the screen. Since it all happened in less than a minute, it was too late for me to realize until the bidding ended.

The only thing I've ever successfully bought on eBay was a bat last February. Super Bowl Sunday, to be exact. The bidding just happened to end during halftime. I got a brand new 2012 Xeno for $198, about $100 off the price you'd pay at the typical sports store/site.

I've got a few bats on my Watch List for the next several days. Hopefully one of them will fall to me. I want to up the weight on the bat my daughter is swinging, want her to try a 25 ounce without spending $200-300 for her to try it and not like it. If I can get something for $30-50, I'll jump.

[JonInMiddleGA]

On the first read I thought you simply got sniped, but after reading again I realize that you had something that - at least in my experience - is pretty odd.

It showed your max bid of $20 after you confirmed it, which should have prevented the $18 bid from being accepted.

I'll see if my former eBay buying demon of a wife has any insight to add, I'll share if she does.

[Ksyrup]

So I've done pretty well in the past couple of weeks, picking up a couple of decent, brand new (wrapped, not necessarily 2013) bats at steep discounts.

One bigger picture question I have about the auction process, though, as I've watched a bunch of these unfold, is... why the hell do people bid up items so early? I can understand trying to scare people off, but at the end of the day you should figure out the highest you're willing to go and hope to get somewhere below that and be in the lead when the clock ticks down to zero, not within $5-10 of the going rate for an item 40 hours before it expires. I don't get that at ALL.

Anyone have a reasonable explanation, other than stupidity + lack of preparation/knowledge + it's the internet and it's staring at me and I can't keep myself from bidding just to bid?

[Ksyrup]

Meant to add a question about how often do sellers bid up (or have someone bid up) their own items? Seems to be a pretty easy thing to do. That could explain sudden jumps in price as well.

[Scarecrow]

Just an fyi but bat prices on eBay are going to drop like a rock the closer it gets to Sept 1, 2013 (new USSSA reqs).

[Ksyrup]

USSSA is pretty much a non-factor around here. If the ASA or NSA implements something like this, then I'd care. But that's good to know. Maybe there will be fewer buyers.

[stevew]

I wonder if the high early bids aren't just a way to figure out what other people are willing to go to. Like my $40 bid is auto-trumped. Okay, lets try $60. Ok. $80?

Seems like the motivation of some is not necessarily to save a ton off of retail either. It costs, what, 5% to get money off the site/PayPal?

I also wonder if people aren't inclined to attempt to screw over other bidders for fun. As in, oh...check out this dick that is in way early with a max bid....I wonder what his ceiling is..etc

[Ksyrup]

That's true - I'm looking for a great deal and don't necessarily need to buy at this point. I guess if I had to buy, I'd be happy with $250 for a $299 product as opposed to trying to keep the bidding low enough to get that same product for $190. It just seems you can do both - keep the price low but protect yourself with a higher auto-bid as the bidding comes down to the wire. Two of the bats I bought, I set my max price just out of reach of the other bidders, and it was funny watching them frantically raising the price by $.50 or $2.00 multiple times and fall just short of my max bid. I paid more than I had hoped, but I got it for less than I was willing to pay.

That just seems like a smarter bid strategy than bidding up a bat I could "Buy it now" for $270 to $210 with 26 hours left in the auction.

[CrimsonFox]

It soudns like the 20 bid didn't record. From how you describe things, it sounds almost like you may have refreshed things before it actually recorded the bid ergo bypassing the actual bid. Only tip is be careful and try bidding multiple times to make sure. Refresh often even tho sometimes a refresh might get the cache instead of the actual page if your network connection is wonky.

[ozias]

One thought to keep in mind, bidding on items is like gambling to some people, and they hate to "lose".

They will bid on items that they will over pay for, just so they don't "lose" it to another buyer, it's their fix and makes them feel better because in their world, they "won".

That's one reason why you see the bids jump near the end of a auction.

When you find an item you like, look to see if there are more auctions of the same, and then watch each one, let them end and see what the final prices are at. This will give you an idea of what you can expect to pay, but it will also give you an idea of who the bidders are. If you see a name show up consistently but they never win, they could be a friend of the seller and just trying to raise the final price, but only if you see them bidding on the sellers auctions, and not other auctions of the same type.

The next best thing to do, is have an idea of the max you want to pay, after studying and seeing the general amount the item sells for, and then enter in a max bid and walk away. If you're willing to pay $60, put in $60 and leave the auction alone, don't go back and raise it if you're afraid someone is going to outbid you, it's not worth it, if it was, you would of been willing to pay $80 or even more, if you really wanted that item.

Unless the item is extremely rare, you'll find another auction with the same item pretty quickly, so keep looking if you didn't get it at the $60 you were willing to pay. This is the best way to keep you from spending more than you should, as well as not dealing with those with a gambling habit, that will pay what ever it takes to win.

I've bought and sold on Ebay, even though it was a long time ago, and I've found the above approach works extremely well. I've also found you can buy most of the stuff for 10-25% of retail, sometime it may be a little higher than that, especially if the item is in high demand, but the percentage shouldn't get much higher than 33% of retail, if it does, you're better off waiting until the demand goes down and get it for a lower price.

[Ksyrup]

I've simply come to the conclusion that regardless of whether insiders are bidding this stuff up, people are just idiots. Which, I guess, shouldn't come as any surprise.

So I've followed probably 2 dozen auctions for the same model/size of bat (a 2013, so there's a ton of demand out there) and I've gotten a feel for where prices are. A few people have gotten good deals, but most don't appear to be getting much of a deal as compared to some of the other ebay offers. Compared to e-tailers or walking into Dick's, sure. But on ebay there's a ton of supply, even for new bats.

You've basically got 3 types of offers: the dude who just lists the bat for about $30 off list price as a "buy it now" offer; the dude who lists the bat for $60-100 off list price but has it set for auction; and the dude who lists the bat as low as $.01 and lets the bidders go to work. Actually, there's a 4th, the dude who offers a "buy it now" price of list. I don't get that at all. But in my experience, the high start price/auction offers (#2) rarely get a sniff. I guess it's all about chasing a good deal, right?

Well, right now I'm following 2 of these bats, one started at $9.99 and the other at $.01. They both have just over 14 hours left. One of them is at $213 with $15 S&H, the other at $232 with $12 S&H. Meanwhile, the exact same bat is on auction at a starting price of $235 with free S&H, 5 hours left and not a single bid. So people are bidding up a bat that already costs more than one with no action on it.

I'm going to watch-list the no action auction to see what happens by this afternoon, but I'm going to go with... people are idiots.

[Ksyrup]

I'm probably the only person interested/fascinated in this stuff, but... so the one auction ended with no bids on a $235/free shipping bat; meanwhile, one of the other bats has 7 hours left and has been bid up to $252 (+12 shipping). Exact same bat - 2013, factory wrapped, same size.

This probably exists somewhere on the net, but there needs to be a forum for mocking ebay bidders.

[stevew]

I'm fascinated by insane economic decisions as well. Somewhere, once upon a time, I remember a thread on here about people spending full face value(or more) for gift cards on ebay.

[sterlingice]

Wasn't that some sort of money laundering or tax evasion thing, tho

SI

[ozias]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

I've simply come to the conclusion that regardless of whether insiders are bidding this stuff up, people are just idiots. Which, I guess, shouldn't come as any surprise.

I'm going to go with... people are idiots.

It's the gambling mentality at work here. And people are idiots.

The people paying more for an item they can get for a buy it now, or going to a sporting goods store is the exact thing I was talking about. That's one of the reasons to watch as many items as you can when it's something you're looking to buy, and chances are these people are not doing that. They might think it's the only auction that has what they want, so they are willing to overpay. Leave those auctions alone and move on to the next one that has what you want, it may take a few auctions, but waiting a little while to save a lot is not a bad thing.

[stevew]

I wonder if there are mentally ill people that just buy objects and then immediately resell them to other people at or near cost just to attain some sort of feeling of self importance.

"12% of aluminum bats on the east coast pass through my fingers"

[Ksyrup]

This is why I watch Hoarders. Eventually I'm going to run across the guy who has 27K of the bats I want and I'll get one for free from 1-800-GOT-JUNK.

[Ksyrup]

So to tie a bow around this little storyline:

1. Bat 1, auctioned starting at $.01, sold for $252 with $12 S&H on 25 bids.
2. Bat 2, auctioned starting at $9.99, sold for $260 with $14 S&H on 22 bids.
3. Bat 3, auctioned started at $235 with no S&H, did not receive a single bid.

Keep in mind, there are probably a half-dozen of these bats offered at a "Buy it now" price of $269 with free S&H. So instead of being bid up and waiting for 3 days to figure out if you would win the bat, you could have just bought it at your leisure several days ago for about what you ended up paying for it.

[Ksyrup]

Oh, and I'm following another of these bats that with 38 hours left, is up to $216 (+$12 S&H) on 16 bids. Meanwhile, the guy whose $235 bat didn't sell has dropped the price to $225 with free S&H and there's 2 days left on that auction. Ha!

[sterlingice]

To be fair, I think you're crazy for getting a $200 bat

SI

[Ksyrup]

Not if you see the way the girls hit with the better bats. They are worth every penny. I'd just prefer to pay fewer pennies. It's really amazing how much difference there is between a $50 bat and a $300 bat. In performance and the confidence it brings, probably worth 10 times the price.

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by stevew

I'm fascinated by insane economic decisions as well. Somewhere, once upon a time, I remember a thread on here about people spending full face value(or more) for gift cards on ebay.

It's the psychological aspect of economics that hasn't been very well studied or explained. Some economists believe a quarter or more of the stock market movement is based on psychological factors. Which is a similar to the eBay thing.